Whew!

Well my hell weekend is over. The billions of little mongerals I had to tend to this weekend are all still alive, as am I. The Bolcom Songs of Innocence and Experience performances are finished, and so is my commitment with Vocal Essence. I have decided to retire. I'm too old. My back or rear can't handle those little hard wood squares lined with metal they call chairs. But I am thankful we didn't have to stand for the entire 2 hour and 50 minute concert. The last time we had to stand through a long concert I ended up with a pinched nerve in my back and was out of commission for 2 days.

Oh, you don't want to hear about my physical ailments? You'd rather hear about the concerts? Oh all right! The concerts went pretty well. They were received surprisingly well by the audience. I will admit that I wasn't too excited about this work. I was excited about the concert, and the performance, but not about this particular Songs of Innocence and Experience. It just wasn't my cup of tea. I thought that there were far too many abrupt changes. So much in fact, that you got numb to the fact that it was abrupt, which took away the surprise element. I thought it was neat to have so many modern styles incorporated, I just wish that it were more cohesive.

As the 8,321 rehearsal ended and the performances began, the work kind of grew on me. Despite all the disjointedness and abruptness, it really did have some beautiful moments in it. The more I heard it, the more those sections stuck out. I wish that I could have heard all those glimmers about 39 years ago when we started rehearsing, but I'll take whatever I can get. There was some beautiful atmospheric setting in the orchestra and a couple solos were quite moving. Maybe if I listened to it a few hundred more times, I'd come to really like it, but by then I would be 97 and deaf. So, if MPR plays it, I'll give it a listen, but then I'll lay this work to rest. It was definitely an experience. I'll give it that.